That Must Have Been One Important Cigarette

I had abdominal surgery twelve days ago. I am finally feeling up for shopping and there are things I need from the hardware store. I’m a thirty-year-old disabled woman in a wheelchair — I’m an incomplete quadriplegic — and I don’t have a car, so I get a taxi — with a ramp on the back so I don’t have to get out of my wheelchair.

The taxi driver drops me off and I go in to do my thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. When I finish my shopping, I call to get the taxi back. It will be a fifteen-minute wait, but it is such a nice day that I don’t mind waiting outside.

As I am waiting, I notice that someone is parked in the disabled parking space but there are no disabled tags on the windscreen. It’s annoying, but I honestly don’t care at this point; I just want to get home. About ten minutes later, I see a middle-aged woman walk out of the store and go straight to that car. She opens the boot, puts her shopping in, and goes around to the driver’s side. But instead of getting in, she gets out a cigarette and starts looking at her phone.

A few minutes after that, my taxi arrives. [Taxi Driver], being the polite and patient man he is, waits for the woman to drive out of the car space. The woman knows he is waiting for her and she is d*** sure she is parking illegally in the disabled parking space, but do you think she cares? She finishes her cigarette and gets into her car.

We wait. And wait. And then wait some more. Then, [Taxi Driver] gets rightly fed up and parks the taxi directly behind the woman’s car, blocking her in. This is when things get interesting.

The woman begins to honk her horn repetitively for a few seconds, and then she gets out of her car.

Woman: “What the bloody heck do ya think ya doin’? Ya blocked me in!”

Taxi Driver: *In a mock-apologetic tone* “I’m very sorry, ma’am, but I needed the car space. And you seemed to want to stay there. Just thought I’d do you a favor. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a job to do.”

[Taxi Driver] gestured in my direction as I gave the woman a BIG smile. I hate confrontation, so I appreciated [Taxi Driver] doing it for me. [Taxi Driver] got into the car and fastened me and my wheelchair into place. All the while, the woman was yelling profanities and threatening to call the police. If it were any other day, I would have been happy to call the police so the woman would get a fine. But I just wanted to go home.

It only took a few minutes before I was secured in the car and we left, but I made sure to give the woman a smile and a one-finger salute through the window as we were leaving, which made the encounter all the sweeter.